Apr 08, 2014 - Sale 2344

Sale 2344 - Lot 178

Price Realized: $ 1,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(MEXICAN WAR.) Mansfield, Joseph K.F. An inflammatory letter from the front by a future Civil War general. Autograph Letter Signed as brevet colonel in the engineer corps to Major Richard Delafield in New York. 3 pages, 10 1/2 x 8 inches, on one folded sheet, with address panel on verso of final page featuring stamped postmark "Brazos June 15, 1847" and stamped "10"; minor wear on top edge and seal tear not affecting text. Camp near Monterey, Mexico, 28 May 1847
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Mansfield rose to the rank of Major General in the Civil War, and was mortally wounded at Antietam. Here he proposes the immediate annexation of California: "I fear we shall have to hold the military command of all Mexico & call it a conquest. . . . My own opinion is that Congress should without hesitation annex Upper California & New Mexico as territories & call it a part of the U.S., defining the 32 or 32 1/2 degree of latitude as the southern boundary till it strikes the Rio Grande & then follow that river to the mouth." This is approximately the border that was agreed upon in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo the following year.
Mansfield blames delays in the negotiations on the character of the Mexican people: "These people are a disorganized mass of population of inferior blood. The characteristics of the negro & Indian particularly as to colour are prominent in them. Now & then you see a little of the pure Castillan blood." He also discusses the army's large-scale movements, describes the fortifications at Monterey, and notes that future president Zachary Taylor "has not been in a condition to advance since the Battle of Buena Vista." Provenance: Collection of Floyd E. Risvold.